<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Tough end to the season for Class AAA Oklahoma City, which was swept by Omaha.</p>— Jose de Jesus Ortiz (@OrtizKicks) <a href="https://twitter.com/OrtizKicks/statuses/376188151640756225">September 7, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>As of 11:35 p.m. the Astros were still deciding their remaining September call-ups. Nothing decided yet, I'm hearing from person I trust.</p>— Jose de Jesus Ortiz (@OrtizKicks) <a href="https://twitter.com/OrtizKicks/statuses/376202600959328256">September 7, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The top 7 are set in stone with Cosart, Villar and Peacock graduating 1.Correa 2.Appel 3.Springer 4.Folty 5.Singleton 6.McCullers 7.DeShields Maybe not in that order, but that 7 is basically universally agreed upon. To me Vincent Velasquez has clearly moved ahead of the rest of the pack as the 8th best prospect.After them there is a wide range of potential 9-10 guys. I would probably put Feliz 9th, he absolutely dominated this year. His walks are very low and K's very high. If he repeats this in full season not only will he appear in the rankings, he will probably appear pretty high. Musgrove is in his 3rd year in rookie ball, so I won't take him seriously until he actually performs at QC.
So does McCullers if you ask some scouts. He may end up in the pen if he doesn't sharpen his secondary pitches, but as we should know all too well great relievers are valuable too.
Unknown. A lack of a ML avg 3rd pitch at 20 isn't going to condemn him to relief. Heck, Bud Norris never developed his changeup much.
Here's where the affiliates stand in their playoff series: OKC: Out; lost PCL American Conference Championship 3-0 to Omaha Corpus Christi: Down 2-1 in Texas League South Division Series to San Antonio Lancaster: Game 1 of the California League South Division Series vs. Inland Empire tonight at 7:00 PM Pacific Quad Cities: Game 1 of the Midwest League West Division Final vs. Beloit tonight at 5:30 PM Tri-City: Leads Aberdeen 1-0 in New York-Penn League Semifinals Greeneville: Lost 2-0 in Appalachian League Championship to Pulaski
OKC got eliminated last night, but George Springer absolutely demolished this ball: <iframe src='http://www.milb.com/shared/video/embed/embed.html?content_id=30382801&width=400&height=224&property=milb' width='400' height='224' frameborder='0'>Your browser does not support iframes.</iframe>
So if he's definitely got a chance to be on the opening day roster, why not bring him up for the last 15 games of the season?
Plenty of current dead weight on the 40 man roster... enough to purge (in fact, they're continuing to add scrap heap guys like Thames and Pagnozzi)
Saturday Stories Lancaster begins its playoff journey. Win or go home. Quad Cities begins the next step in their chase for the Midwest League championship. Recap Texas League South Division Series, Game 4: Corpus Christi 1, San Antonio 0 Series tied 2-2. The Hooks broke a scoreless tie in the top of the 9th and got an excellent performance from their pitchers to send this series back to Corpus for the decisive 5th game. R.J. Alaniz picked a fine time to spin his finest start of the season, as he threw 7 shutout innings and allowed 3 hits, a walk, and struck out 6. Edgar Gonzalez allowed a hit and struck out the side in the 8th, and Alex Sogard closed it out, allowing a hit and striking out 1. Both teams only had 5 hits, but the Hooks' 1 in the run column was the difference. Ryan McCurdy walked to lead off the 9th, and Jonathan Meyer laid down a sac bunt. An error resulted in both of them being safe. McCurdy advanced to 3rd on the play. Michael Burgess was called on to pinch-hit for Jio Mier, and on the very first pitch he saw, he sent a ball right back up the middle to bring McCurdy home. The 5th and final game of this series will begin at 6:05. David Rollins will get the start against Josh Geer. California League South Division Final, Game 1: Lancaster 4, Inland Empire 1 Lancaster leads 1-0. After waiting 5 days by virtue of winning both halves in the California League South, the Jethawks finally got on the postseason road. No signs of rust, though. Brady Rodgers pitched 7 1/3 innings and allowed a run on 4 hits and struck out 11. Kenny Long pitched an inning (2 outs in the 8th and 1 in the 9th), walking 1 and fanning 1. After Long got a strikeout to open the 9th, Travis Ballew came on and walked the first 2 batters he faced. However, he struck out Abel Baker and got Andy Workman to fly out to end it. M.P. Cokinos doubled to lead off the 2nd and scored on a groundout from Brandon Meredith. Cokinos hit a groundout of his own in the 4th which scored Nolan Fontana and broke a 1-1 tie. Tyler Heineman added a sac fly. Meredith hit an RBI double in the 8th for some insurance. Cokinos was 2-4 with 2 runs scored. Game 2 features Colton Cain on the mound as he faces off against Dan Reynolds. First pitch is at 5:00 Pacific. Midwest League West Division Final, Game 1: Quad Cities 3, Beloit 1 Quad Cities leads 1-0. This was the 3rd straight game in which Quad Cities pitchers have held their opponent to 4 hits. Carlos Correa was pretty big too. In the 1st, Teoscar Hernandez reached on an error and was able to advance to 2nd. He scored the first run of the night on a Correa single. #1 finished 2-3 and added a sac fly in the 3rd. Rio Ruiz drew a 1-out walk in the 6th and scored the final QC run on a double hit by Jordan Scott. Tony Kemp was 2-4. Josh Hader went 7 innings and allowed a solo homer to Ryan Mathews in the 4th. He gave up 2 other hits, walked 1, and struck out 1. Mitch Lambson struck out 1 in a 1-2-3 8th, and Andrew Walter allowed a hit and struck out 2 in the 9th to close it. Game 2 of this best-of-3 will be in Beloit. Zach Morton will take on Kyle Finnegan at 6:30. New York-Penn League Semifinals, Game 2: Tri-City 3, Aberdeen 0 Tri-City wins series 2-0. For the 2nd consecutive year, the ValleyCats will be in the NYPL Championship Series. They shut out the IronBirds on their way to a sweep. They actually got perfectoed by Orioles 1st-rounder Hunter Harvey for 5 innings. But when Harvey left, that's when their bats suddenly sprang to life. Well, to be exact, they came alive after stretch time. Ronnie Mitchell led off the 7th with a double and advanced to 3rd on an error. After Yonathan Mejia struck out to become the first casualty of the inning, Jon Kemmer broke the scoreless tie with an RBI double. He advanced to 3rd on a single from Jake Rodriguez and scored on a single from Chan-Jong Moon. Rodriguez advanced to 2nd on a wild pitch, but was thrown out at home trying to score on Moon's single. Ryan Dineen hit a double to lead off the 8th and scored on Tyler White's single. Dineen finished 2-3. Kyle Westwood threw 7 shutout innings, allowing 5 hits, walking 1, and fanning 3. Gonzalo Sanudo threw 2 perfect innings and struck out 2 as he continues his fine season. The ValleyCats await the winner of the other semifinal series involving State College and Jamestown. State College won 12-4 to force a game 3 tomorrow.
Sure. Meanwhile, looking forward to seeing Paredes injure some more players in the OF, while GS celebrates his 24th birthday not playing baseball. #wastedOTJtrainingopportunity. Alas, Astros become about as relevant as laserdisc players after NFL takes over, so I doubt anybody raises the issue again.
You mean we might have to risk losing Phil Humber or Eric Bedard? OH NOES!!! I'm sorry, with the info that is publicly available, there is no logical reason not to bring Springer up.
It isn't Eric Bedard of Humber. It isn't about the guys currently on the 40-man, but the people that will be added. Team will also likely keep additional spots available to make Rule 5 selections. Keep in mind, we have taken 2 selections each of the years Luhnow has been GM. There is actually no logical reason to bring him up at this point.
Giving him the chance to be with the team and get the feeling of playing major league baseball...even if it's only for 2 weeks...could be hugely valuable to helping him get off to a good start next season.
But probably not at the start. Keeping him in the minors for a month and getting an extra year of club control seems like more of a viable reason for delaying him, than getting him caught up in a numbers game over possible rule 5 picks. Regardless, nobody can argue against the fact that getting his feet wet now would only help him further for next year. Also, kinda fun to recap the company line excuses being touted around here: 1. 2 strike approach atrocious, needs more time in minors (proceeds to dominate the entire AAA run). 2. Need to keep minor league playoff core together... that sort of experience is much more valuable than playing on a losing MLB team (even if the team minor league team gets swept, in part due to other key members of the AAA team getting called up Sep. 1st). 3. Rule 5 draft... GS not on 40 man roster yet, so might as well keep him off and put the players we "have" to on. (even though none of the said players have earned that spot any more than GS). If he's not on the opening day roster (which as I said before, might as well keep him down an extra month), I wonder what the next expert reason will be?
Leroy, You might have noticed that Wade/Luhnow have traded almost all of the veteran talent on the team. What they got back, in very general terms, were players whose prospect status had lost its shine, for whatever reason. As a consequence of losing their shine, these players were/are slowly moving through the minor leagues. These slow moving prospects are just the type of players who become Rule 5 eligible and would get drafted in not protected by being placed onto the 40 man squad. This offseason before the Rule 5 draft the Astros (and all of the other teams) will trim down their 40 man rosters ("losing all of the dead weight") and add some of the newly Rule 5 eligible players. The Astros have ~20 good players that they are newly eligible that they will have to decide whether to protect from or expose to the Rule 5 draft. If the Astros add Springer to the MLB 25 man roster now, he will take one of these valued 40 man slots (for the benefit of seeing 2-3 weeks of MLB pitching). He will still be occupying one of those slots come Rue 5 draft. The consequence will be that the Astros will have to expose one more player to the Rule 5 draft who they will likely lose. Due to the number of newly Rule 5 eligible players, the Astros will be net losers in the Rule 5 draft. I would not be surprise if the Astros did not draft any Rule 5 players this offseason and stick with the players they got. If they do draft a Rule 5 player then they will have expose one of the protected 40 man roster players.
Who are the most impactful rule 5 draftees in history under the current system? (I believe Santana was under the old rules). Really curious on this... frankly, I don't expect the rebuild to be affected either way by the rule 5 draft (also getting less and less impressed by the fringe pickups of prospects that have "lost their luster"). I think everybody understands the logic of the rule 5 draft... I just feel Springer has done enough to have him not get caught up in this fringe "numbers" game, and that early/often experience (even for just 2 weeks) will help him going into next season.
